High Hopes Low Rolls

Turns out we've been playing for a long time

Our adventurers found themselves in the crowd heading towards the College of Imardin, for the intake ceremony – a celebrated and spectacular event that only happens once a year. The place is packed. For some reason, on the stage is Ragrig Gemslave, a dwarf slaver. Towards the end of the ceremony, the head of the college Balkien Heimaris produces an item from the inner chamber of the college, and only Valdezar manages to identify it as a Lexicon, and chooses to keep this information to himself. A Dragon appears, and after Nagar is put to sleep whilst fighting the beast, they slide into a ancient part of the college. There, they fight their way through a crowd of bats and across a pit, into the chambers of one of the college mages, though many hundreds of years old. A ghost informs them of the egg he was carrying, and that he is from an age where the dragonborn are relatively unknown. He died fleeing his room, but was unsure why. After working out how to use a teleport pad, they teleport away, to the mountains.

Once in the mountains the party find themselves on Vis Hunulihr, in the middle of the Festival of Deverka. Dwarf Bard, Torlin is forced to confront her past, and her family, whilst the party seeks to restore the Dwarf city’s pride. Vis Hunulihr’s leaders had not been acting in the best interest of The Silver Homeland for a long time – several mines had been lost to mysterious attack, as had Stahl’s Forge. The party somehow find an ally in a pair of Copper Dragons, Linraal and her young son, Sarsen, who live in the peaks above the great dwarf city. Clues to the city’s problems lead the party into the mines, where the party slays a black dragon wyrmling that had somehow made the sacred Stahl’s Forge it’s lair and a host of Duergar that where advancing surface bound. The party returned to the surface, and discovered the rulers of Vis Hunulihr where being influenced by a blue dragon masquerading as a dwarf. At the last minute, when the party feared the worst Linraal descended from the mountain to defend the Dwarves she had become so fond off.

Leaving the mountains much calmer than they found them, the party headed east, towards the small town of Stonewall, where they had heard rumour of a witch mudering citizens at night, and hiding in the ruin of Dergan’s Battery at day. At the last minute they where accompanied by Sarsen, the young copper dragon – after promising Linraal they would protect him. Once in Stonewall, they offered to investigate the murders, which led them to the temple of Pelor, where Father Talesin was the leader of a small – but growing – flock of worshipers. He believes quite adamently that the witch is to blame for the murders. Deciding their best course of action was to investigate the ruins, they leave town to Dergan’s Battery, where they meet the witch – who is not a witch at all, but a sorcerer named Zameena, who used to travel with Valdazar, before he joined the party in Imardin. They clearly have a history both are refusing to talk about, but Zameena does reveal that Father Talesin has been aiding her, sneaking her food through a tunnel that leads from the ruin to the chapel in town. Venzenya, who stayed in town awakens to the noise of firey murder outside the tavern the party are staying in. She converges on the temple, as the party arrives through the secret tunnel, where it is revealed that Father Talesin is the murderer, and is a member of the Cult of Tiamat in disguise. He attempts to slay the party, and falls in his attempt.
The party hurries to Dergan’s Battery, hoping to drag Zameena away from Stonewall, fearing the citizens of the town would not believe their story. They arrive in time to engage in battle with a group of cultists, who kidnap Zameena despite the party’s best efforts.

Based on the last words of a cultist, and the suspicions of Nagar, the party heads north to the port city of Kadar, to see if they can procure voyage across the Arridian Sea to The Nest, where the cult is most active, and is most likely to have taken Zameena. On the road they meet a travelling circus, who they share a campfire with for the night. That evening, the fortune teller confirms their suspicions.

Once in Kadar, the party heads to the dock to secure passage, and meet Captain Masjid of the La’Ahad, a fast ship who will do the job for cheap – but not as cheap as they can currently afford. They secure themselves somewhere to stay, and go about stocking up on supplies and securing jobs to help buy passage across the sea. The largest job they take is from the Mayor of Kadar, Zadiq Zhan, who is looking for his estranged daughter, Zammarah. There is rumour she is Kadar, and the party heads to a bar where she is supposedly performing. Strangely, Zameena’s name is also on the bill, and the party’s suspicions are confirmed when the performance turns out to be a Cult trap, and although the party survives the fight, the building does not – a few stray spells burn down a street, in a part of town that is already quite poor.

They wake up from this event different people – some more differently than others. In the night Valdazar has been replaced by a Succubus, who leads the party to Rairdon, who wants to deliver Red back to her homeland. The party are ultimately saved in this encounter by the quick thinking of the Succubus and the timely arrival of Bree Goodbarrell and several guards, who arrest the Sun Elf. Riardon and Phillipe Amon turn out to be conspiring against the mayor, and are arrested.

Celebrating their win, the party contemplates other jobs they could do in town, and Venzeya buys a hawk. She fails to train it, or care for it properly and Nagar sets it free several days later. Venzeya casts Thunderwave in her anger and whilst she does very little to Nagar, she does kill several and wound many other civilians. In a panic, the party flees to the dock, to buy passage to the nest. As the city disapears on the horizon, they see the tower of the Bank of Arridia crumble away.

Masjid and his crew – which includes Zammarah – drop the party off on the sheet of ice that extends from the frozen land. A short trek inland, they are attacked by wolves, and saved by Dazhna, Nagar’s older sister. Nagar stays in the camp, whilst Dazhna leads the party across the frozen wastes to Hydracill’s fortress and Zameena. It’s a week’s journey and is difficult – but is made harder by Dazhna’s betrayal. Half way through the journey they run into a forward camp of Hydracill’s forces – a huge amount of dragonborn, as well as Giants, amongst other beasts. Dazhna suggests leading them in as prisioners, to which the party agrees. She takes their items, binds them and leads them into the camp – where she is greeted as a hero, and they are taken in chains to Hydracill’s castle.

It was revealed to the party by Hydracill himself, that Dazhna was his right hand. They where escorted to the dungeons, where they were kept for several days, before being bathed, clothed, and re-equipped. They where presented before Hydracill. To his right was Dazhna and to his left, knelt beside him, was Zameena – guant and distant looking. For his amusement, four knights and the Drow Torturer Alystine attempted to kill the party. As Alystine fell, Zameena was freed from his magical control of her. The knights fell quickly after Alystine and as they failed, Hydracill unleashed his namesake on the party – a Hydra – before teleporting away to Birroth.

The party manages to defeat the Hydra, and begins to ransack the castle – discovering that Hydracill’s entire force is gone, presumably teleporting them away to attack Birroth. Alongside a magic carpet, the party also finds Linraal and Sarsen, who had been kept as experiments for Alystine to play with. It takes a long time to free her, and so the party sleeps with the dragons, to recover before she takes them to Birroth. That night, Vladazar takes his mask off – the party seeing his face for the first time. For a moment amongst the chaos, Valdazar and Zameena are just Rook and Rosa.

The next day, they hed for Birroth on the back of Linraal. They land at Dazhna’s original camp, where they rejoin Nagar, who fills them in on the attack on Birroth, before leading them through the now destroyed wall, into the ravaged city. They camp with the refugees for several days before joining a refugee ship headed back to Kadar.

Once back in Kadar, they follow a young man underground, through a dingy pub, into the dry sewer of Kadar. They found themselves walking into a cistern, overflowing with plants that should not be able to grow in Kadar, yet alone underground. Waiting for them is Bree, Angela Teirim, Captain Masjid, Zammarah, Griffin Zaeglar and Olure who inform them that Phillipe Amon and Rairdon have overthrown the rule of the council, and are running the city as a dictatorship, with Phillipe at it’s head. They outline a list of things the party has to deal with if they want to help restore Kadar to it’s people, and the party – feeling guilt for Ven’s previous actions, and a sense of loyalty to Kadar – agree to help.

They start by heading to the Janisary compound to free Captain Michael Stride, who is due to be executed for his opposition to Phillipe. A well respected man within the Janissaries, once Mike is saved and his detractors defeated, he was able to bring the Janissaries in line against Phillipe.

The next person the party decided to investigate was Deirdrie Smalls, a woman Phillipe was apparantly smitten with. They head to Olure’s shop, Lustrious Liquids, to stake the place out. They wait all afternoon and in the boredom, Gwing finds a bow that fits her hand as if it was made for her. Deirdrie arrives with her bodyguard to purchase an assortment of nonsense that whilst certainly isn’t for her painting, Valdazar could not fathom what kind of magic she could possibly be attempting with it. They organise to deliver the box of goods to the drop of point the next day – Olure happy he didn’t have to pay someone to deliver it – and start to head out.

As the party leaves the shop, they hear an explosion and run to investigate. A shop has had the front of it destroyed, and they head inside, climbing through the rubble. Upstairs they are confronted by a group of Tiefling’s dressed in desert gear, and in the ensuing fight Venzenya falls. The party dispatches with the Tieflings and flee back to the Garden Cistern, hoping somebody could help them bring her back. They walk in on Angela, the garden’s owner attacking Rosa, blaming her for the death of Sareth. She lets her go to turn on Valdazar, and is talked into giving up her knowledge by the other council members. The party has to head to the Feywild, to beg Silvanus – the Forrest Father, and the god of Venzeya’s people – for his help to restore her. Bree takes the party to her uncle, who has experience with the Feywild.

Jebidiah is a slightly crazy halfling, who leads the party into the woods until dusk fills the sky. In the Feywild they discuss each other – Gimgar points out it took for one of them to die to realise how little they knew about each other. Eventually, they came across the path to Silvanus’ clearing, plants twisting themselves out of the way to allow their passage. They cleared the four riddles into the clearing with relative ease, but alas, Venzenya’s ressurection was not so easy. The old magic crashed through them, rooting them to the spot, consuming their offerings, but sadly, giving them nothing in return.